The High Tech Pool Company is putting in a new swimming pool for my apartment building. Keeping up with their daily progress is one of the things I do while I am socially distancing myself.
Today I saw that the workers had put up a tent – the fancy square kind with a triangular top – in the empty shallow end of the pool and were eating lunch. I haven’t seen this before. But the clock said noon so what else would they be doing?
Wind howls like Winter
Blooming trees herald Springtime
My window sole view
Back in the fifties
In my teenage years
Music was all about dancing
We slow-danced and we jitterbugged
Answering rhythms with our feet
Bodies young and happy
Legendary Red Tops band
In the Mississippi Delta
Had a tune which stopped the show
When Rufus McKay sang Danny Boy
Golden trumpet soaring high
We stood still entranced
Fringe hangs over my eyes
Now tickles my nose
Neck just a mess
Coiffures in vogue
Indiscriminate styles
Ever since haircuts became
Obsolete
We met again in a magical moment
Forty years later
At our high school reunion
Time suddenly shrunk
To the here and now
We fell in love
For the first time together
We had each traveled that road before
Then sadly reached the end of the journey
Now everything sparkled
Snuggly close and splendid
For a while
Until gauzy distance
Seemed what we preferred
Day without routine
Like a slow dripping faucet
Fills space in due time
Calendar empty
Clock almost irrelevant
I feel oddly free
New problems to solve
Call for creativity
And also good luck
I hit the jackpot
Found browsing Amazon
Large cache of TP
Hardware store shut doors to business
Customers garden, fix own plumbing
Stay home and learn to improvise
Customers of bank next door
Wait in cars for drive-up teller
Since bank’s closed to indoor commerce
Store’s parking lot soon filled again
Bank customers found space inviting
Great place for cars to wait in line
On long summer days
We sat on the curb waiting
For the sound of bells
We longed for the taste
Colored ice for tongues’ licking
Refreshment from heat
He was our hero
Bright memory of childhood
The popsicle man
All the Things You Are, You’ll Never Walk Alone, Grand March from Aida, Stranger in Paradise, Some Enchanted Evening…you get the idea. I loved Broadway Musicals, Operas and Hit Parade Tunes. My son recently added to my repertoire with tapes he created for me of the music of Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington and Harold Arlen. You see, once upon a time we vintage-aged folk were the original golden oldies.
Song is a feeling
Borne on wind and blue ocean
Rooted in the soul
Melody alive
Bodies knew without lessons
From the beginning
My song is a dirge
Today ripped without warning
From a heavy heart
A bird is singing
Notes through eons enduring
So be it with us
